Letter 2879

Mortimer asks for a recommendation for his son, who has been studying at Leiden and is going to Paris to further his medical education. John Mortimer (1656?-1736) was an agricultural writer. Born in London, he received a commercial education and became a successful merchant. In 1693 he retired to practice his ideas on agricultural improvement. He published ‘The Whole Art of Husbandry, in the way of Managing and Improving Land’ in 1707 which was popular and influential. He dedicated this work to the Royal Society, of which he had been a Fellow since 1705. (Thomas Seccombe, Mortimer, John (1656?1736), rev. Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19348, accessed 18 July 2013]).